Graduate Certificate Programs

The College of Media, Communication and Information is offering a Graduate Certificate in Interdisciplinary Documentary Media Practices (IDMP) in conjunction with the MFA in Interdisciplinary Documentary Media Practices, which addresses the changing landscape of electronic media making by developing both analytical and production skills across a wide range of platforms, practices and technologies while simultaneously placing them within the broader perspective of culture and history.

The IDMP Certificate is open to any student pursuing a graduate degree in any department at CU Boulder. By sharing experiences and core courses with MFA students in the department, certificate students will encounter a diverse spectrum of research interests and enrich the program’s curricular environment. The MFA program is approached from a variety of philosophical and cross-disciplinary perspectives across both established and emerging digital platforms. The program’s Documentary Lab offers in producing, directing and scripting and fosters an environment of collaboration and research.

For further information contact: cmcigrad@colorado.edu
Phone: 303-492-5008

The Graduate Certificate Program in Environment, Policy and Society provides an interdisciplinary specialization for students in MA, PhD, and JD programs at CU-Boulder.

Environmental issues — water policy, wilderness preservation, air quality, energy development, and global climate change — transcend ordinary academic boundaries. Policy analyses to deal with these problems must integrate insights and information from many different disciplines. The Graduate Certificate program draws on courses in Anthropology, Biology, Economics, Geography, Philosophy, Political Sciences, Psychology, Sociology, the College of Architecture and Planning, the College of Business, the College of Engineering, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and the School of Law.

For further information contact: Penny Bates
Phone: 303-735-1043
Email: envsgrad@colorado.edu

Designed for working museum professionals and graduate students in other departments, the Professional Certificate program is comparable to the Master of Science degree program, without cognate (disciplinary specialty) coursework and the thesis or project.

If desired, certificate students are able to take specialty coursework through their home department or through the non-degree study plan available in the ACCESS program through Continuing Education. Certificate students may also take a hands-on practicum as appropriate and available.

The application for the Professional Certificate is available by contacting the Museum and Field Studies office:

Janet Bensko, Graduate Program Coordinator
Museum and Field Studies Program
Phone: 303-492-5437
Email: janet.bensko@colorado.edu

The Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies (WGST) is designed as a complement to a graduate disciplinary degree program. The WGST Graduate Certificate provides graduate students with opportunities to think in an interdisciplinary fashion about women and gender, and to learn from a variety of scholarly and methodological approaches.

Students who are currently enrolled in a graduate disciplinary degree or professional degree program are encouraged to apply for the Women and Gender Studies Graduate Certificate early in their course of graduate studies. Students interested in the Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies can call 303-492-8923 or visit the office at the Hazel Gates Woodruff Cottage. wgst@colorado.edu

The Professional Development Certificate for Preparing Future Faculty is for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are interested in pursuing an academic career track. Teaching is not a requirement for the PDC, rather participants complete a project under the guidance of a faculty mentor. Workshops attended may cover teaching issues or professional developmentThe Professional Development Certificate for Preparing Future Faculty provides graduate students with the opportunity to expand their understanding and appreciation of faculty careers in postsecondary institutions by completing a mentorship with a faculty member on a partner campus in the Collaborative Preparing Future Faculty Network.

The Graduate Certificate in Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) offers graduate students the opportunity to strengthen their interdisciplinary knowledge and experience in this increasingly important area.

This interdisciplinary certificate requires a total of four courses (12 credits). One introductory course (ETHN 6103) is required of all students; please note that it is being offered this fall. The other courses can be taken electively, with the provision that at least two of the four courses be outside the student’s home department, and that those two courses be in two different departments.

For more information about the certificate, please contact Dr. Penny Kelsey.
Email: penelope.kelsey@colorado.edu

The Graduate Certificate Program in Culture, Language, and Social Practice (CLASP) is an interdisciplinary course of study designed to complement the MA or PhD curriculum required by a student’s home department. The Certificate Program provides graduate students with the opportunity to pursue the study of language and society from an interdisciplinary perspective, acquiring a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to the sociocultural analysis of language. The traditions of socially oriented language research addressed in CLASP-approved courses reflect the diversity of its 23 affiliated faculty members. These traditions include the sociology of language, linguistic anthropology, narrative studies, philosophy of language, symbolic interactionism, rhetoric, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, language and cognition, conversation analysis, ethnography of speaking, intercultural communication, second language acquisition, language and literacy, bilingualism and code-switching, and varied forms of socially oriented discourse analysis.

Program director: Kira Hall, Department of Linguistics, Campus Box 295.
Email: kira.hall@colorado.edu

The Geography Department offers an interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Development Studies.  Development Studies is a well-established, interdisciplinary field of research with institutional centers at a number of major universities and several scholarly journals dedicated to its study.  The certificate provides interdisciplinary training in development studies to graduate students through a structured yet flexible program built around courses taught by CU faculty in a number of social science departments. Because development issues such as agrarian change, labor migration, new social movements, industrial growth, urban planning, and natural resource use cut across disciplinary divides, the study of development demands interdisciplinary approaches.

Currently enrolled graduate students at CU and non-degree-seeking ACCESS students with bachelor’s degrees may pursue the Development Studies certificate by satisfactorily completing the four required courses.

Steering Committee faculty in Anthropology:
Terry McCabe
Email: tmccabe@colorado.edu
Phone: 303-492-0583

Affiliated faculty in Anthropology:
Donna Goldstein, Kaifa Roland
Carla Jones, Jennifer Shannon

The Certificate in Remote Sensing is from the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department. Remote sensing (satellite and ground-based) is increasingly being used as a technique to probe the Earth’s atmosphere, ocean and land surfaces. Probing of other planets is accomplished largely by satellite remote sensing. Given national priorities in such areas as climate and global change, the interest in remote sensing will only increase with time.Letters to the Remote Sensing Graduate Committee should be sent to the Remote Sensing Graduate Chairman.

Chairman: Professor Bill Emery
Phone: 303-492-8591|
Email: emery@colorado.edu

In Anthropology, contact Professor Payson Sheets
Email: payson.sheets@colorado.edu

The Graduate School of the University of Colorado at Boulder considers the employment and training of graduate teachers to be a professional apprenticeship that shapes the professoriate of the future. To recognize and reward graduate teachers who devote time to improving their teaching, the Graduate School offers a Certificate in College Teaching through the Graduate Teacher Program. Although such certificates are not officially recognized at the state or national level, graduate students report that they are an asset when pursuing employment in postsecondary institutions. In North America more than 80 research institutions currently offer similar certificates at the graduate level.The Certificate in College Teaching may be awarded to all graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty who complete the requirements and evaluation successfully.